


Flightless Birds

by tylerfucklin (Zimothy)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Psychotropic Drugs, Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 14:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zimothy/pseuds/tylerfucklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s Derek, Stiles. You have to listen to me, you’re on something--you’re hallucinating.”</p><p>“It hurts so much,” Stiles whispered, “everything is burning. It hurts.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flightless Birds

**Author's Note:**

> I've been having some massive writer's block/burnout lately so I decided to indulge myself and just write what I wanted for a little while. I just happened to want some MASSIVE Stiles whump with a bunch of hurt/comfort and recovery from trauma.

Stiles sucked in a calming breath, and then another. In theory, there should be nothing behind the door he was currently standing in front of. Djinn weren’t usually active during the daytime, so that meant that it was either asleep inside or in the process of finding a helpless human to feed off of as the supernatural form of a ‘night cap’. Actually, Stiles wasn’t sure if it would be called a night cap since it was two in the afternoon. Day cap? After cap?

It was entirely possible that he was letting his mind wander to avoid the fact that he was pretty much going in blind. It didn’t help that he was only armed with his dad’s spare nightstick and a tranq gun pumped full of his and Deaton’s own supernatural concoction (intended to knock out even the most non-corporeal of menaces).

Closing his eyes, Stiles temporarily contemplated calling Derek, and then remembered that his boyfriend was currently in one of his ‘off’ phases where he was questioning the integrity of their relationship and whether it was worth the stress of constantly worrying about Stiles’ safety. Stiles really didn’t want to force Derek’s internal angsting about his issue with ‘always getting the fragile human in danger’ any more than necessary.

Besides, all he was doing was taking a peek around the condemned house to see if his suspicions about the djinn using it as a base had been true. The house, aged with years of rain decay and overgrowth, had been turned into a meth lab a couple years ago before Stiles’ father and some other cops had found out and put a stop to the operations. Now it was hardly more than a shack with boards over most of the windows and the growing roots of a nearby oak tree making the foundation unstable.

Pulling out the tranq gun, Stiles counted to three and then reached out to slowly push the door open. It creaked and groaned--enough that Stiles had to cringe violently and hope the djinn was either heavily asleep or gone entirely. That hope was dashed when he heard the sound of voices pick up in one of the rooms in the house. He left the door opened, stepping light and hurried across the foyer to try and find some sort of cover. There was a den on the right and Stiles quickly ducked into it as the sound of footsteps approached.

“The fucking door is opened,” Someone snapped, “who the fuck didn’t close it? Phil, go check the other rooms.”

Stiles drew his gun up, flicking off the safety off just as a stocky man in his twenties with a mop of curly hair came stepping into the room. From what Stiles had read, djinn were supposed to be mostly humanoid, but he hadn’t expected them to blend in so flawlessly with real people. The man’s eyes widened in surprise and Stiles fired, dart shooting out and hitting him in the chest.

“Fuck! Jesus -- shit, what the fuck!?”

Apparently djinn were integrated into society enough to curse like a sailor. Stiles wasn’t expecting that one. He waited for the man (creature?) to drop when the drugs kicked in, but instead of drooping, he started to hiss and choke, wrenching the dart from his chest.

“He’s got a fucking dart gun!” The man shrieked. Stiles had barely enough time to fire at the two others as they barreled into the room. He got one in the neck and the other in the shoulder. Derek’s stupid paranoia about Stiles being unable to take care of himself could go jump out a window. Stiles was awesome. He just took out a nest of djinn all on his own.

Except none of the djinn were reacting like they were supposed to. If anything, it looked like they were being made sick and dizzy, but that was it. The first one, with the curly hair and broad shoulders, stumbled forward with a snarl.

“You little shit. I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you!”

Okay. Stiles was starting to wonder if maybe, possibly, he wasn’t actually dealing with djinn at all. Actually, as the other two pulled out their own darts with hisses of pain and loud cursing, Stiles had the feeling that he had seriously miscalculated who exactly he was dealing with.

“Uh,” he said intelligently, hand scrambling to his belt to grab the night stick, “killing sounds a little drastic, doesn’t it? I mean, they were just teensy tiny darts and look! None of you are even unconscious--fuck!” Stiles jerked back to avoid the first man’s lunge, wrenching his nightstick up and catching him in the shoulder.

The man yelped in pain, spitting out more curses and grabbing his shoulder--which really only confirmed Stiles’ suspicions that whoever he was dealing with, they were completely human.

He was so preoccupied wondering why the hell there were humans in a djinn’s nest in the first place that he didn’t react to the other two moving forward until it was too late. He screeched when the first one tackled him to the ground, flailing and hitting the man in the temple with his nightstick. That was about as far as he got before one of the others was taking it away and hitting him upside the head with it.

Stiles momentarily entertained the idea that, if he got out of this alive, he should give Derek free blowjobs for the rest of his life--just because, yeah, he did get himself in danger a lot. Anything further than that was lost in a blur of pain when the nightstick came down again and everything went black.

He woke up to voices arguing, loud and incessant nearby.

“So what the fuck do we do with him? He’s the sheriff’s kid! You don’t think they’ll trace it back to us if we kill him?”

Stiles snorted, head throbbing in pain and vision fading in and out. They wouldn’t just track these guys down, Derek and Scott would rip them limb from limb.

“Give him some Chimera.”

Somehow, Stiles had a feeling they weren’t talking about the mythical beast. In fact, the only Chimera he knew about that was currently running amok was the manufactured drug that his dad and a few other deputies had the trouble of cleaning up after. Stiles didn’t know much about it, other than the fact that whatever it was, it made his dad come home looking haggard and haunted.

“Are you fucking kidding? We only have like an ounce of this shit left!”

“Okay, and? You give him a double hit and I’m pretty sure he’ll be tripping balls so hard he won’t even remember the past week.”

Silence filled the room to a point where Stiles’ ragged breathing was the loudest sound in the room. It was another minute or two before someone cursed and there was a scuffling of feet. Stiles cracked an eye open, blearily peering around the room to see a set of feet approaching him with some kind of flask.

“Genie’s gonna grant you a wish, kid,” the man muttered, grabbing Stiles’ chin and forcing his head back. “Open up.”

“Hah,” Stiles clenched his teeth, breathing through his nose and trying to keep from passing out again with the pain in his head increasing at the movement. Phil, the one with the curly hair, came up with some kind of eye dropper and a plain vial filled with a murky purple liquid. He filled the dropper up, emptying it into the flask that his companion held out.

“Dude, don’t use all of it,” chastised the one holding Stiles’ head-- he had a shaved head, a crooked nose, and was wearing a wife beater with a badly done tattoo of a cougar on his shoulder. 

“Fuck you, I’m not risking him remembering this shit,” Phil snapped, adding a second dropper full into the flask. Skinhead snarled but let him do it, taking the flask back to shake it around before pressing it to Stiles’ lips.

“Drink it.”

“Nnnh,” Stiles grunted, lips clamped shut.

“Little shit,” Skinhead cursed, using his hand on Stiles’ chin to force his mouth open. The flask pushed at his lips, forcing its way in and upending so that Stiles’ mouth was filled with whiskey that tasted like it had been mixed full of dirt and vomit. There was some sort of gritty texture that stuck to his teeth and tongue, making Stiles gag and heave in an attempt to spit it back up. The flask pulled away and Skinhead covered Stiles’ mouth with his palm, plugging his nose with two fingers and forcing Stiles to swallow or suffocate.

As soon as he took the first gulp, the hands pulled away and the two men stared at him for a long, expectant moment. In the corner of the room sat the other one, watching with a detached expression and texting someone on his phone. Stiles’ head felt muzzy, a tingling sensation crawling up over his skin. He blinked a few times, shifting his arms from where they were duct taped behind the back of the chair he was sitting in. The duct tape pulled at the hair on his arms and the room smelled strongly of must. There were scorch marks streaking up the walls, with cracked paint making patterns that swirled and danced before Stiles’ eyes.

The floorboards creaked and Stiles stared down at the ground. His sneakers were scuffed and dirty, and under his feet was an ugly brown-ish carpet that looked like it had seen better days. Stiles felt like he was floating in the air, the distance between his feet and the floor expanding and then getting closer with each breath in and out that he took.

Someone was snapping their fingers and it echoed loud in the room like walls had suddenly turned into rock. Stiles picked his head up, watching dazedly as the skinhead held a lighter out. There were worms crawling on the man’s skin, slipping in and out of small holes that had appeared in his flesh. The worms were dirty and purpling, but some were a sickly yellow color as they crawled under his skin like the scarabs from The Mummy. The lighter in the skinhead’s hand flicked and then came to life. Flame burst from the tip, exploding across the man’s arm and crawling up his skin until it was eating away at his body.

Stiles screamed, but his voice was muffled to his own ears. He screamed and jerked, trying to get out of the chair when the skinhead reached for him with a burning hand like he wanted to set Stiles on fire.

The hand paused and skinhead began to laugh as his clothes burnt away and his flesh melted over and over again. “What’s the matter, kid? Things getting a little hot?”

“Okay, it’s working,” said the man in the corner, “let’s get the fuck out of here before all his crying makes someone call the cops.”

“Wait, we can’t leave him here.”

Stiles whimpered, his body heating up from just being near the man on fire. Whatever the three were saying devolved into gibberish, a mash of various languages that Stiles couldn’t recognize. He tried to lean away from the one who was still on fire, heat prickling all over his skin. He felt like he was about to combust, like he could catch the burn at any second. Flames were dancing down the man’s legs, eating away at the carpet as tinny, little screeches of agony came from somewhere in the room. Stiles watched in horror as the worms dripped from the skinhead’s body like burnt little crisps, wailing in agony at having been burned alive.

Hands were clutching at him, someone was shoving tape over his mouth and he was being dragged through the room as it caught fire. Stiles felt the flames licking at his skin, burning his arms and sides and threatening to tear his flesh apart from the sheer heat. He cried out, writhing against the fire that was carrying him as more worms started to drip down out of the walls, landing on his body and burning up instantly.

He could hear the men talking but it was still in that foreign gibberish that Stiles couldn’t make head nor tails of. He kicked and writhed, trying to get free of the one holding him--trying to escape the fires licking at his skin. Snakes were all over the ground, hissing and snapping and making a writhing mess of the floor to a point where Stiles didn’t know if it was worse to be burnt alive in this man’s arms or to be dropped and left to be bitten by thousands of snakes that all looked like they were probably poisonous.

The screaming from earlier was getting louder. It was a rattling, bone-shaking screech that had Stiles’ eyes tearing up for no reason other than the intensity of the noise. He yelled, trying to drown it out with his own voice as he was thrown into the back of a car covered with spiders. They crawled over his body, nipping and gnashing at him while the fire spread across to the interior from the driver’s seat.

“Shut the fuck up!” Someone screamed as the car lurched. Stiles sobbed, jerking his face when a huge black widow started to crawl up to his cheek. He wrenched and wriggled, lungs clenching up as the fire ate away at the seats and started to burn him all over again.

Hands grabbed at him, shoving him and dragging him until Stiles was pulled out into the sun. It made the fire hotter--so much hotter. He was roasting, and his skin was melting off as the spiders ate at his flesh and worms started to squirm out from the spots where he could see his own bones.

Suddenly, Stiles’ hands were free and he was alone. There was nothing for miles but grass and trees that were starting to go up in flames like the rest of him.

Stiles wanted Derek. Derek could make it stop. Derek could fix it like he fixed everything. He needed to stop burning up. Scrambling for his phone, Stiles dropped it twice before he could manage to hit Derek’s number on speed dial.

Despite the fact that they were having one of their ‘breaks’, Derek still answered on the third ring. Whatever he was saying, Stiles couldn’t really understand. He forgot why he was calling Derek because he was on fire, everything hurt and there was screaming coming from the forest like the animals were burning alive.

He didn’t even realize he was blubbering, sobbing about the forest and the worms and spiders and how it was all burning and it hurt so badly. It was only Derek’s voice sharply cutting in--panicked and harsh--that brought Stiles back into focus. It was his alpha voice, the one he used to get anyone and everyone to listen.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Stiles cried, “it hurts, it hurts, the woods are burning. Derek, it’s killing everything. It’s killing me. I think I’m going to die. I don’t know, _I don’t know_.”

“Stiles! Where are you?” Derek shouted, his voice garbled and tinny through the phone. Stiles stumbled back from a snake that had appeared before him, snapping and hissing like it was trying to bite through the first bit of flesh it could reach.

“It’s so hot, it hurts, make it _stop_ ,” Stiles pleaded, dropping the phone with a screech when the snake shot forward. Worms burst out of his stomach, slithering down his jeans and burning up in the fire licking at his legs. The snake bit his calf, making pain flare sharp and sudden through his entire body. Stiles yelped, pulling his shirt off and throwing it over the snake. When he tried to pull it off, there was nothing there. It was gone and the only thing in it’s place was fire that burned it’s way up his arm.

Stiles didn’t know how long he was burning for, just that it felt like an eternity. The fire never stopped and it was like his skin just kept melting off over and over again. He was so hot--and not even the flames could keep the snakes and spiders from crawling all over his body. He ended up curling into a ball, nails digging into his scalp and begging for someone to make it stop.

At some point, there was more screaming that got louder and louder before it broke off sudden and sharp. Stiles jumped and flinched when a bone-rattling booming noise shot across the forest. He was muttering, pleading over and over again for forgiveness. What he wanted to be forgiven for, Stiles had no idea--other than there had to be some reason that he was endlessly burning in this personal Hell.

Something grabbed at him, tearing at his skin and making it all so much hotter. He screeched, pushing at the person trying to lift him and falling out of their arms. There was a demon standing above him, staring down with black eyes and skin that flickered with blue and orange fire like the kind eating away at Stiles’ flesh.

“No!” Stiles cried, scrambling back when the creature reached for him again, “no, I’m sorry, please! I’m sorry--please stop!”

Blood melted out of the demon’s eyes, hitting the ground and burning the earth like it was made of acid. “Stiles, it’s _me,_ ” said the creature, sounding just like Derek.

Stiles shook his head, pressing a palm over his mouth, “no, no no no. No, see, no, stop. It hurts, it already hurts. Stop, stop stop stop.”

Cursing under it’s breath, the demon stepped forward on cloven hooves, reaching out with arms made of fire and grappling at Stiles’ near-naked body. Stiles didn’t know where his clothes were, or why he was only in his boxers. All he knew was that he was so hot, that it hurt and everything was spinning as he was lifted up by the monster and carried through the burning forest. Stiles screamed and kicked, clawing at the demon’s back and pulling at his hair to try and get free.

“Stop! Stop, let me go! I’m sorry, it hurts, it hurts! It burns, please, stop!”

“Stiles--Stiles, please,” the demon cried when Stiles managed to almost wriggle free. He was shoved into a car, one that smelled like Derek and leather and Stiles burst into tears. He wanted Derek, he wanted out of this Hell. He wanted to go home. He wanted to stop hurting.

“I want my daddy,” Stiles whimpered, pawing at the door, “ _please_.” He wanted his dad to hold him and make it all go away. He wanted his dad to turn the light on and scare away the demons but his dad wasn’t here and his mom wasn’t here and Derek wasn’t here and Scott wasn’t here.

Stiles was dying over and over again and he couldn’t breathe. Nobody was going to save him.

The creature grabbed at his hands, wrenching them from the door and wrapping something around his arms that trapped him against his body. It was so strong--so powerful that nothing Stiles did could knock the demon’s hands off.

“Stiles, stop FIGHTING me!”

“Stop,” Stiles gasped, “stop using his voice. Stop talking like him.” He couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand to hear Derek’s voice come out of something covered in fire and blood with eyes black as night.

“Stiles, whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t true. It’s me. It’s Derek.”

Stiles clenched his eyes shut, even when hands pawed at his face to try and make him look into those dark, terrifying eyes. “No,” he pleaded, “please don’t do this. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“It’s Derek, it’s me, Stiles. You have to listen to me, you’re on something--you’re hallucinating.”

“It hurts so much,” Stiles whispered, “everything is burning. It hurts.” 

“Just hold on, okay?”

“Please don’t kill me,” Stiles begged, struggling for air as the car began to get hotter and hotter as the flames from their bodies started to lick and eat away at the interior. The demon kept a hand on Stiles’ chest, and Stiles stared blankly at the creatures crawling across the dashboard. They were like hands covered in eyes, with thousands of fingers for legs that scratched and leapt at Stiles. He shrieked in surprise, hands flailing to push them off as those fingers grew sickle-like claws and dug them into his flesh. A pained noise left him, fighting against the demon’s hand that kept him pinned to his seat. The heat in the car was getting to be too much, sucking all of the oxygen out and making his head swim. He started to cough, regretting it when a breath drew the fire into his throat. He could feel it melting his insides and began to writhe.

Maybe if he screamed loud enough, he could push the fire back out. 

A hand clamped over his mouth, muffling his cries as he was pulled and pushed somewhere. Everything was twisting and turning in his vision, melting and forming back again. Bats were bursting out of windows in the building that they approached, making the sky turn black. Worms covered the stairs, stuck between Stiles’ toes and squished under his feet with each step they took.

He was shoved into a room and then into another room. The demon left and the fire started to close in on him again. He was suffocating, burning up as the walls crackled and warped all around him. Stiles choked on a sob, stumbling around until he caught sight of a window. He could get out, he could get free. Maybe he could run from the fire, maybe he could save his life.

Stiles grabbed at the first heavy thing he could find, wrenching the chair up and throwing it with all his might at the window. It shattered, the room filling with screams of pain from the glass shards that scattered to the ground. Stiles ignored it, running for the window and ignoring the pain of cutting his feet open as he scrambled to try and climb out. The ground was so far away--like being at the top of a skyscraper--but Stiles prepared himself to jump anyway when something grabbed him around the stomach.

Screaming and kicking, Stiles fought against the thing pulling him through the room, dragging him until he was being forced into a pit of ice. Water splashed everywhere, the cold sucking out the fire and replacing it with a completely different burning sensation. Stiles arched, scrambling to get out of the tub as he was pushed under. He was being drowned; the demon was going to suffocate him in water.

He clawed at the arm holding him under, nails ripping at skin and fire. He came up for air, sucking in a pained breath and wailing. The fire was still there, still agonizingly hot and trying to boil up the water. Stiles felt a hand palming at his cheek, brushing water from his eyes and his hair from his forehead.

“Shh, Stiles, _please_ ,” Derek’s voice pleaded, “come back to me, come on. Just look at me. Listen to my voice. Come on, you can do it.”

Stiles was terrified to open his eyes, terrified to look and see that it wasn’t really Derek who was there, petting his face and shakily rubbing a calming hand down his chest. His heart felt like it was going to explode and he wanted to die and get it over with.

“Make it stop,” Stiles begged, eyes clenched tightly shut, “Derek, it hurts. Please do something, please make it stop. Give me the bite, kill me, do something, just make it stop. It hurts so much, Derek.”

Breathing itself was painful, but Stiles kept trying. He sucked in huge, heaving gulps of air as freezing cold water poured over his head and body--like icicles bombarding down against his skin. He could hear something crying; like an injured animal keening before it was about to be put down. It wasn’t until he heard Derek shushing him that Stiles realized he was the one doing it.

Stiles didn’t want to look. If he opened his eyes he knew Derek would leave and the demon would be back. He just wanted to keep this, wanted Derek to try and take it all and fight the things that hurt him. Stiles wanted his dad there, to hold him and let Stiles curl into his lap like when he was a little kid and his mother had died. His dad could always make it stop hurting, just like Derek did.

Every now and then, the pain came back and Stiles started to jerk again, tried to get out of the water like that would somehow make the burning cease. It was a constant battle between the heat licking at his body and tearing through him, and the cold of the shower that rained down on him and surrounded his body. 

Something broke through the haze of pain--a soft humming that sounded like Derek’s voice. Fingers carded through Stiles’ hair, a palm heavy on his chest to keep him from escaping. The song was vaguely familiar, something Stiles knew he’d heard at least a few times growing up. It was broken and weak, a few notes off-key as Derek continued to touch and pet Stiles while keeping tune.

Stiles focused on it, focused on the sound of Derek’s voice and the feel of his hands. He used those sensations as an anchor, used them to ground himself from the pain and hysteria and terror. If he could just turn everything off, could just focus completely on Derek, on that singing, maybe he wouldn’t die today.

He had no idea how much time had passed, but after a while, Stiles found himself drifting on a numbing sensation--a detached feeling that kept the pain at bay. He couldn’t feel the fire or the water anymore, couldn’t feel Derek’s hands and couldn’t hear Derek’s voice. It was all shrouded in a misty sense of nothingness.

Stiles clung to that sensation with the hope that he never had to go back to Hell again.


End file.
